onic wars. The genius of her family seems, however, to have
been concentrated in Carmen Sylva. She was exceedingly beautiful in her
youth, and is charming to-day at the age of sixty. As a child of seven
in Bonn, she frequently sat on the lap of the aged patriot-poet Ernst
Moritz Arndt, who inspired the little princess with his patriotic tales.
Her youthful sorrows, the loss of a beloved brother and of her father,
and the protracted illness of her mother had a deep and melancholy
influence upon her. Extended journeys to the south, to Sweden, and to
Russia widened her poetic horizon. In 1869, Prince Carol of Rumania
wooed the "Forest Rose," as she was called poetically; in 1870, all the
wondrous feelings of a happy mother and a great poet were opened to her
by the birth of a daughter; four years later she lost her child, and
then she sings the words of despair: "For what purpose the great royal
castle, we are but two!" She translated into German verses the Rumanian
songs that had pleased her child, and later she translated many of the
great Rumanian poems. There is in them the wild melancholy and
simplicity of true popular ballads; there is the ring of a poetic
sympathy with nature. They come straight from the heart of the people,
and the translation is full of the same poetic feeling. Her _Thoughts of
a Queen_ (Paris, 1888) are worthy of a Pascal in their depth and
earnestness and wide range, covering life, humanity, love, happiness,
sorrow, pain, spirit, and art. She is of a wonderful intellectual and
spiritual fertility. She wrote _Pilgrim Sorrow_, which has reached its
fifth edition, and has been translated into English by Helen Zimmern.
_Sappho, Hammerstein, Storms, Some One Knocks_ (translated into French,
prefaced by Pierre Loti), _From Two Worlds_, and _Astra_ are universally
recognized.

It is indeed a strange phenomenon that the two most gifted German poets
are a queen and a peasant woman: Johanna Ambrosius. It is true that the
refinement, the melody and sweetness of Carmen Sylva contrast with the
painful plaints of poor Johanna, who suffered physical want many times
during her life. Yet both have been in their way chastened in the school
of pain and sorrow, only it was in one case the sorrow of the hut, in
the other the sorrow of the royal palace.

Of the other women who have excelled in letters in recent times, the
great majority exerted their influence through novelistic literature:
Wilhelmine von Hillern, s